A look at some of the more remarkable items found during 40 years of collecting all manner of recordings. For information on saving these files, see the top box on the right.

Monday, February 20, 2017

He's In the Army Now

First up, here's one more song-poem ad from 1919, again from a Photoplay magazine, courtesy of Pete. "Reaper Block" was the name of a block within the Loop, in Chicago, built not long after the great fire. I'd never heard of that before seeing this ad.

Many thanks, Pete!!

And now!:

About ten days ago, I heard from a fellow named Justin, with whom I'd been in touch a year or two ago, regarding song-poems which are related in one way or another to the Vietnam War. He has a project regarding songs related to that war, with one of the sub-headings being Vietnam related song-poems. He was writing to give me an update on his blog, which is part of the project, and which you can find here, and to ask if I had discovered any further songs which would fit his project.

By absolute coincidence, the next Rodd Keith record I'd put aside (and this pile has been there for months), is, of all things, a Vietnam era song from a soldier to his girl. I did not plan this, it just worked out perfectly - I didn't even recall from the title that it was a soldier's song, as the relatively generic title, "Please Don't Forget Me", doesn't give that away at all.

So please, everyone, and particularly Justin, enjoy Rodd Keith, under the pseudonym of "Dan Monday", with a rather weepy, but not unappealing song meant to be sung across the ocean.

On the flip side, we've got a backing track that Rodd used repeatedly, for country flavored numbers, usually ones which end up a bit more sappy than this one. "I'm Sorry I Ever Met You" is the title, and it doesn't do much for me one way or the other.

Just as an FYI.... Rodd Keith was *not* the singer known as Dan Monday, on any of the records, as far as I know. I think this misconception was fueled in part by the misattribution of the Dan Monday track "General Custer's Story Remains Legend" on 'I Died Today' to Rodd... but they were most definitely two different vocalists. (There's a rare non-song poem Rodd credit on this single here -- https://www.discogs.com/Brett-Sings/release/3882548 -- and I believe the 'Brett' singer is also Dan Monday).

Milford Perkins also gets lumped in with the Rodd pseudonyms on occasion, but he too was a different vocalist.

To Save These Files

Divshare Issue

All files uploaded prior to March, 2015, were lost by Divshare in that same month. None of the files in posts prior to this month will work. I am in the process of updating these broken links, and they are working back to October of 2014 at this time. Read more about it here.

About Me

I'm the father of two amazing young women, married to the most wonderful woman in the world, and I work in the mental health field. I play several instruments and record my own music. I'm a long time record collector, hoarder of unusual, rare or unique recorded sound, musical, spoken word or other, and am glad to have found this outlet to share some of my favorite parts of it with others.